The instant invention relates to a collating machine and more particularly to a collating machine having the dual capability of stacking sheets of paper in the same or reverse order in which they are fed to the collating machine.
Collating machines are frequently used in line with other paper handling equipment as a means of assembling a plurality of sheets of paper into a particular, desired packet prior to further processing, which may include additional collating, folding, and inserting. For further background, reference can be made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,766,569 and 4,143,981. In a typical paper handling sequence involving an initial output consisting of a plurality of sheets of paper, to be later combined with subsequent output from other feeders downstream, the initial output is fed from a stack seriatim to the collator, which collates the output into the desired packets, either in the same order as the sheets had when they were in the precollator stack or the reverse order. Each packet is then folded and subsequently combined with other output from document feeders located downstream thereof and ultimately inserted into an envelope.
In many cases it happens that the initial output to be collated arrives in an opposite order so that the collator needs to collate in an opposite manner to enable the documents to emerge from the collator in the proper sequence for subsequent handling. In such a case, the only real option is to have a second line of paper handling equipment which includes a collator having reverse collating capability. Clearly, this is not a desirable option to users of paper handling equipment.
Accordingly, the instant invention provides an improvement in a collating machine permitting the same collating machine to be used for collating in the same or reverse order as the documents are fed to the collator. Changing the collating order of the machine requires only a few minutes of an operator's time to add or remove a few parts and is easily accomplished with the instant invention.